Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"John, it's been months. You have got to start killing your own roaches."

"But they're huge." Carter lingers feet away from the offending bug on Anna's countertop, shaking hands clutching a rolled-up magazine, and Anna is beginning to lose her patience.

"John, just hit it."

"But what if I miss it?" His voice raises half a pitch, and Anna can hardly believe the same cool, collected man that confronts broken, bloody human beings on the daily is unable to kill a larger-than-average insect.

"Then you hit it again! John—" The bug skitters a few inches, and Anna reflexively lunges forward to smack it with the shoe in her hand. When she pulls up the shoe, Carter physically recoils at the sight.

"It's dead, you wuss." She lightly thumps Carter on the shoulder with her other hand as he warily eyes the spattered insect remains.

"I just don't like them." He drops the magazine and runs his hands through his hair before throwing his most mournful eyes her way. "Plus, you're much better at killing them."

"Because I've had years of practice." She tosses the shoe to the side and grabs a paper towel, scrubbing away at the remains of their conquest. "Welcome to working class life."

It's meant to tease, but she can practically see Carter deflate as he sinks into the nearby chair. "I didn't realize I'd be this bad at it." He laughs weakly, but the smile doesn't reach his eyes.

Be nice. He's new at this.

So she crosses to him and crouches down, letting her hand rest on his knee. "You'll get the hang of it. I promise. No one's expecting you to immediately know everything."

"Just feel like a pretty useless boyfriend." He shrugs and picks at his fingernail.

"John, you're not useless. Just…inexperienced." He doesn't meet her eyes, so she threads her fingers through his own and tugs at his hands. "Hey. There's gotta be something out there you know how to do that I don't."

He scoffs. "I don't think that's true. You know how to do everything."

"Not everything."

"You fixed your own sink last week. You patched that crack in your wall all by yourself, and when that man catcalled you last week, you cursed back at him so loudly he ran off."

The memory brings a twitch of a smile to her face, and he smiles back. But she sees his point.

"I'm sure we'll find something. In the meantime, I'll save you from the bugs."

"Anna, I've got it." His face is aglow as he bounds up to the admit desk, practically skidding to a halt to avoid overturning Malik's tray of urine samples.

"Got what?"

"Meet me by the Adler tomorrow at 10. I thought of something I can teach you." He's practically bouncing on the balls of his feet, and the enthusiasm would be adorable to Anna if it wasn't so wildly out of step with his mopey mood these past few weeks.

But she'll indulge him. "What is it?"

"It's a surprise." His eyes take on a slightly mischeivious glint, and an alarm bell in Anna's brain goes off.

Fine. Two can play this game. "Oh come on. Give me something."

"Anna. Just trust me. It'll be fun." He grabs her hand and squeezes, and Anna feels her heart go soft.

Go on. Give him this one thing. When was the last time he was this excited about anything?

"Fine. 10 am. Do I need to bring anything?"

"Just you." He grins, then darts back into the flood of providers and patients in curtains.

She doesn't see Carter for the rest of the day, and in that time, Anna's brain conjures up a hundred ideas of what it could be. She crosses off rollerblading (he's not coordinated enough for that), sports (he already knew she'd done them all with her brothers), and the planetarium (what he could teach her that wasn't already on the museum placards?) and the overthinking begins to morph into anxiety as she tries to fall asleep.

God, I hope he didn't spend money on this.

She falls asleep sometime around 2 am but jolts awake at 7, talks herself out of calling Carter at a last-ditch attempt to needle the answer out of him, and instead channels the energy into a deep clean of her apartment. By 9, she can't bear the tension, and heads out to face her fate.

When she gets to the Adler at 9:45, she spots John leaned against a light post, a small plastic bag in his hand and a grin on his face.

"Alright. Close your eyes."

"John—"

"You're so close, Anna. In two minutes you'll know."

She heaves a long-suffering sigh and lets him loop his arm through hers, then closes her eyes as he leads her forward. With each step, her heart beats faster. Something doesn't feel right. Her intuition was usually her strong suit, but this was John. He was safe.

So why am I scared?

Wait. Is that the sound of—

No.

"Open your eyes."

Her eyes fly open to rows and rows of sailboats, and she reflexively takes a step back.

"Ever been sailing before, Anna?" His smile is so wide, and oh God, she's gonna ruin it.

"John?" The sound of her voice is strangled, and she wants to slap herself. Pull it together, Anna.

The smile on his face instantly falls. "What? What's wrong?"

She shakes her head, forces a smile she knows he can see right through. "Nothing. I…" Something rises in her throat that cuts off her air, and she swallows it down.

"Anna. What's wrong?" He puts a hand on her shoulder, but she pulls away and looks helplessly at the marina before her. She can't meet his eyes. 

"I kind of…have a thing. About water." 

"Oh." His face immediately falls, and she hates that's she's the one who did it. "God. I'm sorry."

"It's fine. You didn't do anything wrong." She takes a shaky breath and exhales—get it together, Anna—then turns back to him. "You wouldn't have known. I don't talk about it."

He nods, then flicks his gaze out to the boats, then back to her. "Did something…happen?"

Did something happen?

Deep down, Anna had always known the answer was yes. She just didn't know why.

A momentary flash. A splash. A scream. Coughing. Can't breathe.From when? She could never recall. The memory's got a fuzzy, dreamlike quality, but she can never place the exact details. Only that it gives her a sick feeling in her stomach and makes her tense up whenever she gets too close to Lake Michigan, so she's never investigated it further.

But it's not something Anna tells the world. She's the rock. The eldest daughter. The pillar anyone and everyone can rely on in their time of need. She doesn't get scared. She doesn't have silly childhood fears, like the dark, or clowns, or spiders. She just doesn't like water. That's not the same as being afraid.

So she pushes all the feelings down, and reduces it to a simple shrug. "Makes me uncomfortable." Not a lie. "Not all of us could spend our summers on the coast." A defensive jab, even though he's being nothing but kind. Yeah John, us poor kids don't get out much. An easy out.

He nods again. "Did you ever learn how to swim?"

Another half-shrug. "I tried a class in college. It just…wasn't a good fit." Also, not a lie. She'd made it two steps down the stairs into the pool before she froze, and dropped the class two hours later. "And with med school, I just never had the time."

It's this final little white lie that gets her into trouble, because she sees his eyes light up.

"Anna. This could be good." He turns to her with a look in her eyes that makes her stomach drops. It's that look he gets when he's determined, ready to climb a mountain without a shred of equipment to his name. An I can conquer the world, Anna, even when I don't know what I'm doing kind of look, that came from a life of blind resources and privilege where most things weren't impossible. It was the look he'd had when he'd gotten arrested last year, a bright-eyed idealist who didn't he was going to spend the night in lockup if nobody bailed him out.

"What do you mean?"

"Let me help you. You're teaching me the finer points of a normal life. I'll get you comfortable on the water."

Her stomach drops. "John, that's not…you don't have to do that."

"But I want to. And it could be fun—"

"But that's not the same." Something wounded flashes across his eyes, and Anna immediately backtracks. "I mean…I want to help you. You don't have to pay me back."

"It's not payback. Besides. It's free, it's new, and it's something we can do together. It's my parents' boat anyways, and I already know—"

"John. No." The tone's sharper than she intends, and he flinches and his eyes flick to the ground, and she instantly regrets it.

"Sorry. This was stupid. I should've asked. I just thought…" He swallows hard, then throws her a weak smile, embarrassment pinking his cheeks.

Shit.

How could she tell him it wasn't him? That this is the one thing, the only thing, a stupid, unexplainable thing. If he could pick anything else, she'd willingly follow him farther than even he knows, but this thing….

He finally thought he could give you something, and you squashed it.

Something more powerful than her fear begins to swirl: guilt. This is her fault.

Anna Del Amico. You helped your mother raise seven boys. You are a trained medical professional—doubled boarded, no less. You've killed bugs with your bare hands and told off catcallers with a mouth that would make a sailor blush. Wouldn't it feel good if you didn't have this thing hanging over you any more?

Besides, look at him. He needs this.

And if Anna is motivated by anything, it's a problem that she has the power to fix.

"John…" His eyes flick up to meet hers. "If we do this, I have…conditions."

He meets her eyes. "Are you sure?"

"Just…I need to take it slow. Really slow."

"Absolutely. Anything. Whatever you need."

"Like, a long time."

He nods. "And you're sure you want to do this?"

No. "Yes." It's not true yet, but she'll make it true.

She has to.

"I promise you'll be alright. See? We're not even unhooked from the dock." Carter reaches out from the boat to take her hand, but she flinches, and he draws back.

She flashes him a weak smile that she hopes is close enough to sorry. "Just let me….look at it for a bit."

Carter's eyes flick to the mid-sized sailboat in front of him—a fairly innocuous sight to him, Anna's sure, and yet for her it's the sole cause of the quiver in her knees.

But he just nods, and they sit in silence for a few minutes. When it's clear this really will take a while, Carter pops back to the dock, kicks off his shoes, and puts his feet in the water. He leans back as his toes hang off the edge and just skim the surface of the water. He turns his face to the clear summer sky, soaking up the warmth, and Anna could almost hate him for how relaxed he looks while her heart pounds away. 

She stares at him to avoid facing her nemesis—a blue, 21-foot Gulf Coast sailboat, Carter had called it. 

"So you're sure you know how to drive this thing?"

"Used to take it out with my friends on the weekends back in high school," he'd said. "It's the smallest one we had and my dad didn't care what we did with it. And we did a lot to it." His eyes crinkle with a smile, but she can't quite find the humor yet.

They're quiet for a few moments more, the sounds of the marina filling the gap between it.

"Would it help if I explained it? All the parts and how it works?"

Anna shrugs. "Couldn't possibly make it worse."

So he takes her through every part of the offending sailboat with surgical precision. The mast, keel, hull, rudder. How to set and adjust the sails, how to chart your course. 

"And that"—he points to a motor at the back—"is what some would call cheating."

Anna frowns. "So it's not just the wind?"

He shakes his head. "Some people are purists. But if you have the money and don't like the thought of relying on Mother Nature to get you home, it comes in pretty handy."

"Can't blame them. If I was stuck out on Lake Michigan, I'd want to get off as fast as possible."

Carter smiles. "You'd be missing the point of sailing, but yes, it does help with that."

Finally, after nearly an hour of staring at the boat, Anna's decided that it couldn't hurt to just sit in it for a little while. No movement.

Like a gentleman, he helps her onto the boat, sits her on the bench. and fits her with a bright orange life jacket, as promised. Her whole body is shaking, but he bends down to eye level and takes both her hands in his. 

"Anna?"

"Yeah?"

"You sure you're okay with this?"

She swallows hard. "Yeah, just….taking it all in. One step at a time, right?" Her voice shakes, but she keeps her eyes locked on his. 

He squeezes her hands. "I'll take good care of you. You've got nothing to worry about."

Anna nods, and prays he's right.

True to his word, Carter went slowly. Their first two visits, she just sits in the boat with a life jacket on, trying to manage the rising panic attack that comes with the feeling of the water moving underneath her. The first time he takes the boat out of the marina with Anna on it, he didn't even unfurl the sails—just flipped on the outboard motor and did one loop out and back. Anna sat next to him, kept her eyes squeezed shut, and didn't let go of John's hand the entire time. When they docked, she promptly threw up over the side.

A week later, they sail just outside the marina exit, and John drops the anchor for ten minutes. She still holds his hand and keeps her eyes shut, but they manage a conversation—he tells her about the time a 5-year-old came into the ER having spitefully eaten his older brother's toy race car, piece by piece—and Anna makes through the whole story without losing her lunch, which she counts as a win.

By the third trip, something strikes Anna—John's good at this.

Out here, on the water, he looks younger, softer, and yet he moves with a confidence she's only seen him display in the ER. His hair is fluffed and curling at the ends from the humidity, and his skin has a sun-kissed glow that’s so often washed out by hospital fluorescents. His wiry frame slips amid the ropes and lines with ease, and she catches herself watching the muscles in his bicep tense and release as he winds and tightens and sets.

Settle down, Anna. 

But watching him provides a welcome distraction from the fact that she is on the water, which could very well kill her. It's different than when she sees him in the ER. There, she can go toe-to-toe with him, call him out, challenge him, and yet their radically different perspectives can be knit together in a tapestry of medical expertise to provide the best outcome for the patient.

Here, she has nothing to offer. Not a bit of knowledge. Not a shred of know-how. Totally helpless.

Out of control. 

She doesn't make a habit of giving herself over completely often, if ever, and there's a small part of her brain that chastises her for it.

Stupid girl. Never give up the upper hand. Control keeps you safe. You want to rely on him to keep you safe. 

But it's John. Can't I trust him?

Not as much as you can trust yourself, Anna.

She shakes the thoughts from her brain. She's been out in the sun too long.

She turns her attention back to Carter, anything to break the spiral. "So, you've talked with your family, then?"

"A little. Why?" He's barefoot and hoisting the main sails, which unfurl in a satisfying snap in the light summer breeze. She's agreed to give him half an hour today, after which they'll go to the park and try to do journal review.

"Just wondering how you got them to agree to let you use this boat. Or is this not part of your trust fund moratorium?" There's more bite in her tone than she intends, but if Carter notices, he doesn't say anything—just shrugs.

"They didn't care. They're in Venice till September anyways, and Emil from the marina is more than happy to hand over the reins. One less boat of ours he has to quality check only for no one to use it. Though that's probably the case for most of the boats out here." He hops down from the front of the boat and wipes the sweat off his brow, then spins the Northwestern baseball cap backwards on his head.

Chicago's favorite son, she thinks to herself. Meanwhile, she's still bundled in her bright orange life jacket, unwilling to risk any part of her not floating if she falls overboard, which Carter has assured her almost never happens.

"Do you still want me back here with you?" I wanted to see if I could adjust a couple of lines, but I don't have to." He's still earnest in asking, not a shred of resentment even though Anna knows her glacial pace must bore him out of his skull.

So she shakes her head. "I'm okay."

He smiles at her. "See? A few trips in and you're already on your way."

Anna's smile is weak compared to his radiant grin, but she'll let him have this. He's not wrong—while she still can't look out at the open expanse of Lake Michigan, she's found that staring at the city skyline helps ease the nausea in her gut.

So to the front—sorry, forward—part of the boat he goes.

As he makes his adjustments, she stares back at the rows and rows of glittering white yachts, more than half of them unused even on this gorgeous summer's day.

Her mind flashes back to hot, sticky summers in Kensington, when all the neighbor kids would run outside and pop open the hydrants, sending gallons of cool water gushing. Anna would round up her brothers and they'd charge into the street, and the mists of rainbows from the spray made the dirty streets look just a little bit closer to heaven.

An unexpected pang of resentment twists in her gut. All these people, spending millions on shiny boats they never used, all while the rest of the world made heaven out of the little scraps life left them.

Suddenly, she's the girl in class with the torn jeans, the hand-me-down tomboy with a hole in their shoe, eyeing the girls in an outfit she knows came off the store rack in Woolworth, instead of three owners removed in the local Goodwill.

He's from a different world, Anna. He may not have money now, but he could change that with a phone call.

Don't start thinking you're the same.

Through July, Anna and Carter's lives are filled with double shifts and heat-exhausted patients and journal clubs and research presentations—but it's also filled with nights sneaking up on her rooftop and cracking open cold beers, of splitting hot dogs as they walk up and down Michigan Avenue, or lunch breaks and stolen kisses on the riverfront. And of course, they make a weekly trip to the marina, each trip doing a little bit more to chip away at Anna's fear.

But something else is building too, and it won't go away no matter how much Anna tries to ignore it.

Maybe it's the summer heat turning her studio apartment into a hotbox that not even three fans can combat, or the unexpected price hike of monthly El passes, or the news that resident salaries at County wouldn't be increasing this year due to budget cuts.

It's not just about being poor—Anna's always been poor.

But the more she helps Carter, the more she realizes that even their versions of poor aren't the same.

She's teaching him how far you can push the "best by" dates on food labels and how to find the good stuff at thrift shops. He's taking her out on a borrowed sailboat—his family's extra boat.

She's trying to scrape together one more student loan payment. He's got no debt after eight years of college and medical school.

It's real for Carter this time, but also…not. Like it's just a role he's trying on until he finds out what he really wants from life.

He complains about money with the rest of them, lamenting the low resident pay and the cost of rent in the city. And yet there, in the background, is the Carter family money, always waiting like an escape hatch whenever he's had enough.

You don't have that. So many people don't have that.

She tries to ignore it, push it down. But still, the thoughts still linger, like gathering clouds in a storm.

Chapter Text

August 13, 1998 is the big day. A whole day out on the water. A culmination of all Anna's hard work and a monument to her conquered fear.

Anna's stomach has been in knots all week over it, and a tiny part of her wonders if her intuition isn't trying to tell her not to go.

It's not the only warning sign. The night before, Carter called into to pull an unplanned night shift. But he told her it was nothing, that he'd be ready to go after a morning nap.

The second thing—a phone call from her brother, Hank, at 5:46am—should've been her next omen.

The phone had woken her from a deep sleep to with the news that her seven-year-old niece, Maria, had an emergency appendectomy the night before. They'd caught it in time and she'd be alright, but he wanted Anna to know. After she was done tearing him a new one over not calling her—a pediatrician!—the minute they went to the hospital, she'd asked how they were all doing. She didn't miss the catch in her brother's voice when he mentioned the medical bill, how they hadn't hit their deductible yet, and how it'd be a stretch for the next few weeks with groceries for all six of them, but they'd figure things out.

Anna had taken one look at the student loan bill on the counter, flipped it over, and told Hank she'd wire him some money. He'd tried to protest, but she wouldn't hear of it, said it was her job as a big sister and a good aunt, and what was family for, anyways?

As she'd hung up, she'd had a thought. A terrible, horrible, thought that she wanted to shove back into the dark hole it came from.

If John were in this situation, he could make one call and get the money in a snap. It'd be over. Done. Fixed.

It wasn't fair, and she knew it. His reasons were his own, and she had no right to judge whether he did or didn't pull from his family's resources.

But she couldn't fix Hank's problems. All the control, all the careful planning in the world, and she couldn't do a thing about it. And if John was in her shoes, he could.

What was she supposed to do with that?

They meet at the marina at noon.

He looks exhausted, and for a moment she considers dragging him back home into bed where he belongs. She's not much better, and feels almost as wrung out as he looks. But when he smiles and holds out his hand, she can't help but take it, and off they go.

They go through the famliar motions—Anna putting on her life jacket, Carter untying the ropes and maneuvering it out to open water, and they're off. Both of them are noticeably quiet, and the air's devoid of their usual small talk.

Carter's first to break the silence. "Something on your mind?"

She shakes her head. "Just family stuff." She pauses for a moment, then figures she's got nothing to lose by telling him. "Hank called this morning. My niece was in the hospital last night. Appendectomy."

Carter's face falls. "Is she alright?"

Anna nods. "She'll be fine. The medical bills were just the last thing they needed, and things are gonna be tight for a while."

"Anything I can help with?"

"Not unless you've got a million dollars." The words slip out before she has a chance to stuff them back in, and he visibly flinches. "Shit. That's not—forget I said that."

He nods, but the change in his body language says she hit a nerve.

She should leave it alone. She really should.

Explain yourself. You're already feeling it. Might as well be honest.

So she takes the plunge.

"You just…you don't know what it's like. Not having something to fall back on, no life raft as backup. We're different, that way. I mean, for God's sakes, we're using your family's extra boat out here."

It's meant to be a joke, but he doesn't laugh, and suddenly, she can't stop talking. "And we come out here, and it's just a reminder that you and I come from very different worlds."

With every word, she's digging deeper, and the more she sees him tense up, the more she feels this compulsive need to make him understand that it's not him, it's just that money really can fix certain things—

"Is that what you think this is for me? A phase?" He's not looking at her now, but she can see the tension in his body as he ties, unties , and reties a rope.

"No. I'm just saying if you wanted to, it would be over, and that's not the same as—"

"Do you want me to pay your brother's medical bills, Anna?" Carter's voice is on a knife's edge and cracks on her name. "Would that make it better?"

"What?" The accusation feels like a punch to her sternum.

"If I crawled back to my parents and asked them for money, would that make me less useless to you?"

"John, I did not say that."

"You didn't have to." A short, bitter laugh slips out, and he finally meets her eyes. "All this time I really thought this was about helping you. Instead, every time we're on this boat, all you're thinking about is how dumb this is, how I could be living it up instead of slumming it."

"Oh, don't put words in my mouth—"

"You're sure happy to put them in mine!" He's inches from her now, and his eyes are simmering. "Were you even scared of the water, or were you just doing this because you pitied me? Thought I needed a little project?"

"Oh, that's low, John. You think I was faking all that?"

"I don't know, Anna. You've certainly been thinking a lot of things you weren't telling me about, so I figure it's worthwhile to ask."

They stand at an impasse, the waves of the lake bobbing the boat, neither of them willing to bridge this chasm between them.

Finally, John speaks."Let's go back. We don't have to do this."

"No." Anna crosses her arms and forces her gaze out at the water. "I said I'd spend the day out here, and I'm going to."

"Fine." Without another word, he hops back to the sails and adjusts them. Part of Anna assumes he'll jump right back in where they left off. But he doesn't speak. Just lets all the ugly words simmer out in the summer heat, searing into both of their psyches.

Anna can't take it. She has to explain, make him see, help them find some kind of agreement. "John, I—"

He cuts her off instantly. "I'd like to be quiet for a while, if that's alright."

That's that, then.

They sail east for another hour in a tense silence. Anna sits as far away from Carter as she can—a difficult task in the small confines of a sailboat.

Finally, Carter breaks the silence. "I'm gonna drop the anchor for a bit." It's a statement rather than an invitation back into conversation, and Anna obliges with a simple nod. It's become oppressively hot, even on the water, and her head is beginning to ache. So she lays back on the bench seat and closes her eyes.

She's not sure how long she sleeps, but she awakes to the frantic shaking of her shoulder.

“Anna. Wake up. We gotta go back.” She blinks open to see Carter crouching over her, his brow furrowed.

“Hmm?” Anna squints her eyes against the light. It’s cloudier than it was when they'd both gone quiet—wasn't today supposed to be nice? As she looks back toward the skyline, her eyes immediately catch on a terrifying sight—there, on the western skies against the tiny pinpricks of skyscrapers, a bank of dark billowing clouds is creeping up on the horizon.

"John." Anna's voice wobbles, and she swallows hard. "What is that?"

"Line of storms coming in. Must've popped up from the humidity." He’s reaching and tying and pulling and rigging and moving much faster than he had when he’d patiently taught her each part’s name. Now, he moves with surgical precision, more akin to how he’d act if a multi-person MVA came through the trauma doors.

Except in those circumstances, Anna can help. Out here, she’s once again reminded that she's useless, and the feeling stokes the churning nausea in her gut. Her trembling hand finds the nearest handhold to cling to, and her knuckles go ghost-white.

They're so far out. How did this happen?

"How…how did this happen so fast? Didn't the weather say it was supposed to be clear today?"

John swallows, eyes flicking back to the skyline, then back to her. "They can pop up fast sometimes, especially in the summer. Occupational hazard of Chicago." If it's a joke, neither of them laugh.

Anna lets her held tilt down, staring at her lap, trying to will herself to believe she's safe, she's on dry land, she's fine, she's not about to die in the middle of the Great Lakes—

"Anna." Carter's voice is firm and directly above her, his hand on her shoulder, and it jolts her back into the present. It suddently hits her how small this boat feels, and how vast this lake is, and how flimsy the orange life jacket feels around her neck. For the first time, the vague thought hits her that she's never seen Carter wear one.

"We're alright. It'll be tight, but we can make it back in half the time with the motor. A little storm's not going to take this old boat out."

He manages a small smile for her. Anna nods, but doesn't trust herself to speak. There's still so much they need to say, hash out, and now all of it seems so, so small.

"Anna." His hands take hers again, like he'd done that first day where she could barely make herself sit in the boat. "We're gonna be alright."

"Mmhm."

Carter flips on the motor, and they begin the race back to shore.

They tried.

They really tried.

But Anna knows they've lost the minute she feels the temperature drop, chilling the sweat on her skin and pebbling goosebumps on her arms. The wind, which had been a strong breeze, suddenly dies to a deafening calm.

But the most terrifying part of the calm is that it allows her to hear the slow, puttering fade of the motor's hum. Carter hears the motor die out the same time Anna does, and they both twist to look at the back of the boat.

She doesn't have time to question a thing before Carter's darting back, cranking levers and pulling starters, to no avail. He turns back to her, and for one moment, his eyes lock with hers and looks as scared as she feels.

In the distance, the thunder rumbles. The sky darkens more and more by the second. The waves lap against the side of the boat.

Then, the look on his face is gone, replaced by the same force of will she'd seen come over him during the benzene spill all those months ago.

"Okay. Here's what we're going to do." Carter points ahead to a small compartment at the front—damn it, forward—of the boat. "I need to set a couple of the sails so they don't tear when the winds come. You need to go in the compartment and find the other life jacket. I think there's a windbreaker I threw in there, too."

Anna wants to go get it. She tries to go get it. But she's locked in place, clinging to the side of the boat, trying to control her breathing so she doesn't sob, and she can't move.

This isn't her. She's the calm one. Collected. The one everyone turns to when things fall apart. She doesn't fall apart. She doesn't get to—

"Anna. Get the jackets." Carter's voice is firm, commanding, a tone he only uses when overriding a treatment order.

A job. He's giving her a job. A task. Something to lock her mind in on other than the impending storm.

Okay. You can do this.

So Anna inches herself across the deck and fumbles with the latch, hands finding the crumpled nylon of the windbreaker.

Then, they land on the tattered remains of what must have once been the second lifejacket. Whether from old age, mice, or some other corrosive force of nature, it's more scrap than clothing, and wholly, entirely unusable.

"John…"

"What?"

She holds up the decrepit life jacket, and some of the foam crumbles in her lap. Carter just nods slowly, processing the lastest in what feels like a neverending string of bad luck. Anna wants to throw up.

But still, he's calm. "It's okay. We've still got the life preserver, and I'm a half-decent swimmer."

"John, there's got to be a way we can both use mine—"

"No." Anna tries to protest, but he won't hear of it. "Anna, you keep yours. I'll be fine. It's not a discussion."

God, she could throttle him. But she knows he's right, and he's the only expert she's got.

"So what's your grand plan, then?"

He takes off his hat and pushes back the hair underneath, then puts the hat back on—a nervous tic she's noticed over the past few months."I've dropped the anchor, so that should keep us in one place. We're going both sit down back here, lower our centers of gravity and wait it out. The waves are gonna come, and it'll be rough, but it'll be over before you know it. And we'll head back to shore, just like that."

He reaches down to take the windbreaker that she's twisting in her hands, and gently wraps it round her shoulders, and they both sit down. The floor of the boat already rolls in a nauseating rhythm, over, and over, and Anna has never wished for stillness more than now.

Anna wants to say something. Anything. Apologize for earlier today. Tell him she meant some of it but not all of it, and he's not useless, but they're not the same, but so much of it has nothing to do with him, and someday she'll learn to speak her mind without wounding him in the process.

"John?"

But he just shakes his head. "No deathbed confessions, Del Amico. Whatever you've got to say to me, say it after."

The rain begins to patter on the boat's deck, and a crash of thunder heralds the storm's arrival. Anna flinches at the sound but scoots closer to Carter, and he wraps an arm around her shoulders. The waves begin to roughen, and a wave of panic unlike anything Anna's ever felt floods through her veins, like pure adrenaline's been injected in.

Then, the heavens let loose.

The driving fury of the wind instantly takes her breath away, the rain pelting her skin like bullets from the sky, and she and John are both drenched in less than a minute. The boat rolls from side to side and bucks with every wave. They're seated, but Anna can barely stay still, much less hold on to Carter.

She wants to squeeze her eyes shut and pretend none of this is happening. This is her worst nightmare, come true, and there's no way out. She squeezes Carter's hand harder, and she feels him squeeze back.

It all happens in one breath. One moment, a giant wave smacks the small boat, throwing Anna and Carter against one side of the boat, and she scrambles to grab the closest fixed object. She's barely gotten her bearings when a wave crashes over the other side, and she rolls back across the deck. She can barely hear Carter's shout as he reaches for her. But the rolling waves are suddenly thrown out of rhythm by a terrible crack.

She can’t even bring herself to scream. All she sees is the mast of the sailboat falling toward her, Carter scrambling toward her her between flashes of lightning, leaning over to grab her as the boat rolls far, far, too far….

And both her and Carter tumble into the tumultuous waves of Lake Michigan. 

The minute she plunges under the surface of the ice-cold water, Anna remembers.

She's seven years old, at Tracy Mikulavic's pool party. Tracy's mom had called every other mom in the class. Anna didn't know the girls well—she'd often spend most of her time with the boys in her class anyways— but a small part of her glowed at the idea of going to a real party with other girls her age. She's never even been to a pool, and she's learned to stop asking her mom to go every time they drive by, so this is finally her chance.

She's there in her stretched-out bright blue swimsuit they borrowed from her cousin, legs dangling in the water, watching all the other girls splash away in the deep end, with floaties and inner tubes.

She's contemplating getting up and joining them. when she realizes a few of the girls are huddled, giggling, staring at her, and it's only a second too late when Anna realizes that the other girls are behind her, each grabbing a limb, giggling, and none of them listen to Anna when she says no, no, no, she can't swim—

—and then one girl trips on the concrete, and they all fall into the pool.

Anna remembered spinning, screaming, but the water swallowed up every sound into nothing. She kicked, but felt herself falling down, down, until she's scraping her knees on the bottom of the pool. The air was going, and she was going, and the black spots were coming in on the edge of her vision and she couldn't stop it, she's going to die—

Underwater, it’s all silent. She pitches over, tumbles, flails her arms and legs, get to the surface, get to the surface, kick, kick, get air and then the silence breaks as her life jacket pops her back into the tempest. 

But the gasp of air is tempered by the mouthful of water she takes in, and she's coughing, choking, limbs flailing, and the water is cold, cold, cold—

“John!” She’s screaming now, the felled boat at a horrifying angle behind her, capsized and sloshing to and fro like a toy in a child’s bathtub. 

“Anna!” She can hear him, but she can’t see him. She tries to move her arms, but they won’t go and why did she never learn to swim, she should have had Carter teach her to swim—

She’s yanked from behind, and Carter has swum up behind her and has hold of her. She panics, grabs on to him, gasping for air, and then he shakes her. 

“Anna, stop!” The volume of his voice over the waves stuns her, and she freezes in place. “Do not pull on me, or we will both sink. Got it?” 

Anna nods, but her hand's still twisted into his shirt, and she fights the primal urge to wrap every limb around him. Up close, she can see a smear of red blood on his forehead and a frighteningly deep gash near his hairline. He's bobbing in the water, without a lifejacket, and she realizes he must be kicking like hell to be keeping himself above water in waves like this.

"To the boat," he yells. "Kick as hard as you can."

The boat's about 30 feet away, floundering in the waves, but it may as well be a mile for all Anna's skills. They both struggle-kick their way to the stricken vessel. As they get closer, Anna can see that the boat's almost fully overturned, the smooth blue underbelly peeking out like a whale surfacing for air. By the time they get to the hull, Carter's practically dragging her as the waves come, and come, and come again.

"Can you get up?" Carter's yelling over the sound of the storm, and Anna frantically looks for something, anything to grab onto to pull herself up. But there's nothing close enough. There's the keel—she remembered that one—sticking straight up she could grab on to, but it's at least three feet up out of the water. There are no hand holds, no railings, and the top of the hull's high enough she can't reach it on her own.

She tries kicking once, twice, but every time she gets close, a wave smacks her back down. The lifejacket keeps her afloat, but only barely, and it doesn't keep the water from sloshing over her head every time she bobs back down.

After three tries, she's spent, and yells she can't, but it's not an answer Carter will accept.

"You have to. On my count, you kick."

She doesn't have time to think, and he's counting one, two, three, and somehow perfectly timed with the waves, he shoves her from behind and she launches up and onto the hull of the boat with a stinging smack. Carter's hand is right next to her, but then it's sliding, scrambling for purchase, and before she can think, she grabs it.

Anna manages to get hold of him, but he's still at least half in the water. She wonders absently why he doesn't just launch himself up like he'd pushed her. But then she realizes he's gasping for air, and Anna suddenly realizes how much getting her through the water and on this boat has cost him—especially without a life jacket.

All the pieces solidify in her brain. The human body loses heat 25 times faster in water than air. By getting her out of the water, Carter had bought her time—and sold his own. She already feels her drenched body begin to shiver in the wind, but she knows that the frigid Lake Michigan water is even worse.

Any other time, she would every last bit of her power to pull him up with her. But she's so, so tired, and it's so loud, and she doesn't have an ounce of anything else left to give.

She can't. The word's foreign to her. Anna Del Amico can. She doesn't need. She doesn't want. She does. And now, on this floundering hull of a half-sinking sailboat, she can't and John's going to die.

"I can't, John. I can't."

"It's okay. Anna. It's okay." But it's not okay, because she's out of the water and he's not and the waves keep rolling, and she's hanging on to a giant piece of plexiglass that's cutting into her hand with every toss, and her hand that's clinging to his is beginning to ache. His voice was soft, but she can see the way his eyes aren't quite focused on her, and even though the water's washed some of the blood off his forehead

"John, what do we do now?"

"Stay warm. Save energy. Someone'll find us when the storm dies down."

"What about you?"

"I'll be alright." His eyes've taken on a glazed look, and she can see him battling to focus. "Just hang on."

And hang on they do, though Anna's not sure what other choice they have.

It feels like they've been clinging to the half-sunken vessel for hours.

Anna's not sure how long they've been clinging to the stricken hull of the sailboat. She knows everything hurts, and she's so cold, and the wind is still pelleting her entire body with rain, and the waves will not stop.

Though science declares she's losing less heat on the boat's hull, the shivers that rattle her body are making her feel otherwise, so she can't imagine how much worse Carter feels. But she can feel the great shudders that wrack his frame through their single handhold of contact. Her body's beginning to lose feeling, and more than once she feels her grip on the keel slipping.

“J-j-john. I c-can’t stay up.” 

"C-come on. Yes you c-can."

He's pale and purple-lipped, and his body's quivering against the hull of the boat, and he looks as frozen as she feels. But still, he won't give up, and he won't let her give up either.

"C-c'mon, Anna. B-bones of th-the hand."

"S-s-screw y-you."

"N-not a b-bone."

"Fine. S-scaphold…"

And on, and on. She tried to give up. She really did. And every time, he refused to let her.

But the more time wears on, the more she realizes the elements may yet overpower his will. He'd moved with powerful strokes early on, but she can tell he's flagging, his white-knuckled grasp on her hand slackening every so often.

"How m-much longer?"

"N-not long, Anna. Hold on."

It was a lie.

They'd waited longer. And longer. And still nothing.

"Don'….don' let me fall'sleep." Carter's slurring now his words, though she can't tell if it's the head injury, the hypothermia, or some other third horror. It's been so long. Time has slowed to an ice-cold trickle. The waves are still, and everything is so, so quiet.

"Head…head hurts…"

It's the first moment he's admitted weakness, and it cracks a kind of dam in Anna that's been holding back her panic all this time. "John. N-no. S-stay awake."

"T…tired."

His grasp on her hand loosens again as his eyes roll back in his head. In one second, Anna's holding his dead weight in her hands.

In three seconds, Anna's cold, exhausted brain realizes a horrifying truth.

He doesn't have a life jacket.

He's unconscious.

If she lets go, he drowns.

Chapter Text

In the middle of Lake Michigan, on the upside-down hull of a foundering sailboat, Anna clings to an unconscious Carter for dear life.

On land, his slim frame doesn't look like much. But out here, tethered only to Anna, Carter's dead weight might as well be two tons. She's laying on her stomach with both hands wrapped around his wrists, her aching shoulders begging for her to let go and bring some relief. But she's too scared to budge an inch, terrified that one wrong move will make him slip from her grasp and into the icy depths.

"John!" She knows it's useless, that whatever's wrong with him, he's too far gone to be woken up by sheer will alone. But she can't be out here alone. She can't. None of it was supposed to end like this. Nothing was supposed to happen out here. He promised.

"John Carter, wake up. I'm not kidding."

Still nothing.

What was the last thing they'd said to each other, anyways? Before the storm, before he shoved down his anger and became the man she needed him to be when it all fell apart? She can't remember, but she should remember because they very well may be the last words she ever hears from his lips.

No, Anna. Don't give up.

It's his voice instead of hers in her head, willing her on. Damn you, John.

His rain-slick skin slips in her hands, and she squeezes tighter, with everything she has left, so hard she's sure she's bruising him. The waves still roll, and the rain still pours, and Anna knows she can't hold on much longer.

Hold on, Anna.

"I'm trying!" All the frustration, all the anger, all the resentment bubbles over, and she yells back at the spectre of his voice. "You just had to leave me to do all the work, didn't you?"

It's not true, and it's not fair. None of this is. She knows he would've stayed if he could have.

But anger is white hot, and it warms her chilled body ever so slightly, and it takes her mind off the ache in her shoulders, so she keeps going. "You brought us out here on your family's stupid Kennedy-ass death trap sailboat, even though I was scared. You somehow missed that a storm was going to try and kill us both, and this all happened because you just had to share something with me you were good at and now…"

The anger fizzles almost as soon as it began as she's cut off by a sudden sob. She doesn't really mean it. She never meant any of it.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry." The freshwater rain mixes with the saltwater tears on her cheeks, the product of all that pent-up shame and resentment and fear and everything else that had been churning within her over the last two months.

The tears are hot against her frozen skin, and she can't stem the flow, can't wipe them away, can't stop the despair that's welling up inside her as reality begins to set in. They're going to die out here, but she doesn't want to spend her last moments with Carter like this.

It's easy to be angry with him. To act like he's done something wrong, like he's hurt her, like he's some kind of threat that justifies all the arrows she throws his way. Like he's lying in wait for the first sign that he can abandon ship and go back to what once was instead of what he's trying to be now.

It's harder to admit that she's scared.

Of the water, yes, and every other part of this current hell. But also of him. Of the way he wears every part of himself on his sleeve for anyone to wound. Of the way he had every material possession one could dream up at his fingertips, and yet pushed it all away for the idea that he could be something new. Of the way he's patient, and kind, and compassionate, and flawed, and short-sighted, and naive, and stubborn, and complicated, and hers, if only she'd let him be.

And perhaps it was that last thing which scared her most of all.

Now, adrift in the sea, clinging to his slipping hand, she wonders if she'll ever get the chance to tell him any of that.

Hold on, Anna.

Okay.

Then, she feels him slip again.

No.

Like watching the final grains of sand trickle through an hourglass, Anna knows her time is almost up.

She can't hold him like this for much longer. She's not strong enough to pull him up.

Come on, Anna. Think.

Her eyes flick down to the orange life jacket round her neck, then to John. In an instant, two numbers flicker in her brain—their respective weights from the latest practice physicals they'd done on each other to demonstrate for the new residents back in July.

How much weight can one life jacket hold?

She'd never asked Carter. And before, it wouldn't have mattered—he wouldn't have let them share back when they were on the boat.

But that was a lifetime ago, when options were plentiful, and the boat was still beneath their feet. Now, she has a single life jacket, and nothing else, and his life is slipping through her fingers.

She knows he'd hate her idea. He'd rather she let go, let him slip into the depths like some noble sacrifice they sing about in folk songs, and go on living without him.

But there's too much to say, and too many apologies to offer up, and he'd forbidden her from deathbed confessions, so really, he owes it to her to live.

Her heart quickens at the thought of what she's about to do. But she will not let go of him.

Our Father, who art in heaven…deliver us from evil…

The prayer's a reflex. A long-buried talisman that's been lying at the rock bottom of her fears, just waiting for her to pick it up. And she figures it couldn't hurt.

God, if you're watching, a little help? Please?

Carter's hand slips again. The final seconds. It's time.

Help me. Don't let us drown.

And then, she pushes herself off of the boat and back into Lake Michigan.

Hitting the water feels like deja vu—another jolt to her system as the cold water steals away her breath once more.

Just like before, she throws every limb she can around Carter, but this time, she's his lifeline. His anchor.

Or at least, that was her plan.

Instead, the force of her re-entry plunges them both under water for for a torturous three, four, five, six, seconds, and momentarily, Anna wonders if she'd singlehandedly signed their death sentence.

But then the buoyancy of the jacket kicks in, and they just slowly, sluggishly return to the surface, and Anna's momentarily glad for the feeling of rain on her face again. The life jacket strains under the weight of them both, but they're floating, and it's better than nothing.

The relief of the plan working immediately shifts as Anna realizes the sheer amount of effort she's undertaken. Carter's facing her, still unconscious, and she's clinging to him under his arms. The mass of them both just barely floats on the lake's surface, but every wave that rolls their way bobs them both underwater, and it's up to her to kick their way back up.

Though he's not as heavy to hold now as he was when she was clinging to him on the hull, he's still not high enough out of the water, and every wave is a risk that he'll aspirate more lake water—the last thing he needs.

It's a vicious cycle. Wave, under, kick, cough, catch her breath, repeat. She considers hoisting him up a bit higher, but she cannot risk him slipping. So she keeps kicking her way up. Again. And again. And again. Her body is numb. Her legs burn. Her teeth chatter. Carter's head lolls on her shoulder. And still, she does not stop kicking.

Every time her head bobs under the water, she gasps in a breath, squeezes her eyes shut and conjures an image, a person, anything to remind her what's waiting for her on the other side of this.

Her parents. Her brothers. Her nieces. Her nephews. Her studio apartment, in all its cluttered glory. That little cafe on the corner that makes her favorite latte. The exam rooms at County.

John, making a face to make a pedes patient laugh. John, sitting vigil at a dying elderly patient's bedside. John, eyes glowing like starlight when she finally said yes to a date.

John. John. John.

She cycles through the image like a montage, as if her life was flashing before her eyes—except it is not, it cannot, because they are both going to live.

And she's so focused, so determined, that she almost misses the shouts in the distance.

The rescue's hazy.

Suddenly there are searchlights blinding her, and people are shouting, except her mouth won't form the words she wants, and she's so tired, and she's so cold, but she can't give up, not now…

Carter's suddenly pulled from her arms and the panic rises in her body at the absence of him, no, no, no, she can't lose him now, but her limbs are too sluggish to respond appropriately and cling to him all over again. Then she feels herself being lifted and cradled and placed on a firm surface, and oh God, it's over, it's over, it's over.

"Ma'am, can you tell me your name?"

Anna. It's Anna.

But all that comes out is a sob.

Anna's in and out for what she can only assume is the next few hours, vaguely aware of being lifted, poked, and prodded, and wishing someone would dry her off and warm her up. At some point there's a warm weight placed over her, but it only makes her shiver harder. But her eyes are so heavy, and sleep wins out.

When she comes to, it's in the dim light of a hospital room, covered in the weight of warm, heavy blankets, the sound of rain pattering against the windows, and the gentle clicks of Carol checking a monitor next to her bed. When Carol catches Anna's eyes, she smiles.

"Welcome back, Dr. Del Amico. "

Anna's entire body aches, and she's cold down to her bones, but the events of the day come rushing back, and she suddenly has to know.

"John…is he…"

"He'll be alright."

"What…what happened?"

Carol sits on the edge of Anna's bed and takes her hand. "He needed some stitches and some oxygen. Came in with a temp of 87, so we spent most of last night night warming him up, as well as monitoring him for a possible concussion. Head CT came back clear so we're thinking it was just superficial, but we just wanted to be sure the hypothermia wasn't hiding anything."

"It's…morning?" Anna's two steps behind.

"Just past 6:30. You've been asleep nearly 12 hours since they brought you both in last night."

Twelve hours.

"I have to see him. I have to—" She's already trying to sit up, maneuvering her aching body through the wires, ready to crawl to his room if necessary, and Carol's instantly got her hands on Anna's shoulders, gently easing her back down.

"Hey, hey, slow down. Let's let you wake up a bit, first. I promise he's not going anywhere."

After a torturous 30 minutes of monitoring, checking vitals, and empty threats from Anna, Carol agrees that she's is stable enough to visit John—so long as she goes in a wheelchair. Anna balks at the idea at first. But she relents when she tries to stand and her knees buckle, and she plops back on her mattress with a dull thud.

Carol simply raises her eyebrows, then glances down at the wheelchair. "I think you've had your fill of heroics for the day, Anna."

Anna manages a tight smile, nods, and holds out her arms, and Carol tranfers her over and wraps a warmed blanket around her shoulders, tucking another over her knees, and Anna is grateful because she's cold.

When they arrive at his bedside, a lump rises in Anna's throat. Carter looks so small in the hospital bed, body shrouded in warming blankets, pale face half-obscured by an oxygen mask with a white bandage above his left eye.

This was the same man. The same Carter who'd commanded the boat through a storm, who'd told her she'd be alright, who held her hands and pulled her to the boat. He was multitudes, and he was alive, and it's a gift she never thought she'd get again.

His hand peeks out from under the blankets, and she takes it in her own—it's ice cold, and Anna rubs his fingers gently to try and warm them.

The small movement makes him stir, and his eyelashes flutter open to the most beautiful brown Anna's ever seen.

"An'a?" His voice is muffled and weak, but it's him.

"I'm here, John. You're okay."

His fingers curl around hers, and his eyes flutter shut again.

Over the next few hours, Carter slowly but surely makes his way back to the land of the living. He's still fairly groggy, but he's able to manage a few sips of the warm, weak tea another nurse brings him. His temperature's still on the low side, but is pulse ox gets high enough that he's able to switch to oxygen through the nasal cannula. He's coughing, but Mark says that's normal—they'll just have to monitor his lungs over the next couple of days to make sure infection didn't set int.

Anna's struck by the overwhelming need to stay close to him. At first she just attibuted to her desperate bid for body heat—no matter how many blankets Carol brought her, she could not get warm. Carter's not much better off. Despite a heated blanket, his temperature stays stuck around 95, and he's wracked with intermittent shivers that rattle his bones from head to toe.

Finally, she manages to shuffle herself out of her wheelchair and crawl next to him, and he buries his head in her shoulder as she hugs him close. She'd worry she was being overbearing if he didn't seem to crave the touch as much or more than she did.

For all the things Anna was desperate to say to him back out on the lake, she's suprised at how hard it is for the words to come now. They're both curled under his heated blanket, and her fingers absently thread through his hair and around the bandage, and she knows she needs to say…something.

But before she can speak, Carter beats her to it. "Guess I've confirmed I'm fully useless after all this."

Anna freezes and immediately sits up. "John…what?"

His shoulder twitches in an approximation of a shrug. "I said I'd keep you safe, that nothing bad would happen. That I'd get you over your fear. And I almost got you killed."

"John, that's ridiculous."

"Is it?" His voice still rough from the intermittent coughs he's had all morning, and she sees his lower lip quiver. "Without me, you wouldn't have even been out there."

"Yeah, but without you I would've still been scared."

Carter lets out a half-laugh, half-sob. "I know you did it just to make me feel better."

"No, John. I didn't." The rebuke is too forceful, too much, and she shouldn't be doing this now, but she cannot let him think this for a second longer. He pulls back so he can look her in the eyes, and she doesn't break his gaze.

"When I was a kid…." She swallows hard, forcing the words out. "I fell in a pool. At a friend's house. Didn't know how to swim, and almost drowned. That's how it all started."

She suddenly feels as exposed as if someone had torn away her hospital gown, and she reflexively pulls the blanket closer. "So no, John. I didn't make it up, and I'd never told anyone. I mean, I didn't even remember the whole story until yesterday."

He's still quiet, but Anna has to know that he gets it, gets this. "John, I don't…" Why was this so hard? "I don't need a lot. I don't ask for much. And most times, I'm okay, really…" And her voice cracks, and damn it, don't cry, don't cry.

She feels a rustling under the blankets, and his cold hand slips around hers. Just like he had done on the boat when the tempest had brought its worst. Just like he'd done a million other times.

It's him. You're safe.

Still, it takes several deep breaths before Anna feels steady enough to speak again. "Sometimes, I do need things. On that boat, I needed you. And there you were." She pulls his hand up to her chest and lays his hand over her racing heart. "And then I almost lost you, and I realized I need you all the other places, too."

It's too simple. It barely scratches the surface of what she wants him to know. But she meets his eyes, wet with unshed tears, and she knows he heard exactly what she meant to say.

There's one more thing, too. "And I'm sorry—really sorry—about what I said. About the money."

John shakes his head. "It doesn't matter. We were both tired and—"

Anna cuts him off. "That's no excuse. I shouldn't have said it."

He shrugs. "You could be right, though. I could go back to them tomorrow, and it would be over. Your problems could be over, too."

"Do you want to?" It's a genuine question, one Anna's not sure what his answer would be.

He takes a long, deep breath—or tries to, until the coughing fit rips through his lungs, and Anna props him up until he's finished. After, he lays back, spent, and she pulls the blanket back up over both of them. "It's just…complicated. And even if I leave, it'll always be a part of me. Who I am. I'll never really get away from it, and I get it if that bothers you."

And he looks so resigned, so worn, that Anna begins to wonder what that kind of burden would do to a person.

So she offers what only she can: the truth. "The money's not you. You're you, John. And I'm sorry I—or anyone—made you feel like there wasn't a difference, because there is. You are kind, and thoughtful, and compassionate, and none of that belongs to anybody else but you."

He's quiet for a while. For a moment she thinks he's fallen asleep, but when he speaks again, his voice is shaky. "Thank you."

She feels him shiver against her, and she pulls him close.

In the days to come they'll learn it was truly a freak accident. The mast of the old sailboat had been cracked for ages, and it was only a matter of time before it would've snapped on anyone—the storm just accelerated things.

That afternoon, they'd both had the doctors reach out to their family to let them know what had happened and that they were both alright.

Anna got eight phone calls: seven from each of her brothers plus a joint call from her frantic parents, each of which she gave the same boilerplate speech: she was fine, it was really nothing, the doctor made it sound worse than it was, don't worry about her, but she misses them and she'll call them soon.

Carter got a generic well-wish typed on monogrammed stationary, delivered to his room the following day. He tosses it aside and swallows before pasting on a weak smile. "I don't blame them. I did sink their boat, after all."

The resignation in his tone makes Anna want to go straight to Venice and shake both of his parents till they came to their senses. But she just wraps her arms around him. "The storm did that, Carter. It wasn't your fault."

It's another small crack Carter family veneer—that under all that wealth is something deeper and crueler, a cold detachment that made Anna wonder what circumstances could make her family's poverty look like a welcome relief.

Never mind that, though. He was here, and he was needed, wanted, loved—and if not by them, she'd do everything in her power to make up the difference. She had him. He had her. And that could be enough to weather whatever came their way.